TAPS is a survivor-run group that helps victims of sex trafficking to break free. You can reach us at https://www.facebook.com/TraffickingandProstitutionServicesOnline/ We also help family members and other loves ones to "retrieve" someone they feel is either trapped into sex work. If you are a parent - you can get help at www.swanfellowship.webs.com. This is the author's personal opinion and since written in the USA is protected under rights of free speech. (702) 488-1127.

First let me establish who is writing this letter. My name is Jody Williams. For years in the late 1970’s and early 1980’s - I saw there was no solutions for someone like myself, and others, who wanted help to leave any part of the sex industry for ANY reason. Any reason including if you wanted to leave a pimp or escape a trafficking operation. Calls to the police were futile because we were the ones considered the “criminals” for one. For another, there weren’t the laws written to address our situation so without recognition of the problem – solutions didn’t exist yet for us either. Back then there was no difference between our situation and someone saying they wanted help to “escape aliens abducting them for sexual purposes”. We were treated identically back then - as simply making up imaginary stories.

I had been looking for solutions because I couldn’t find a way out of my own situation. I was knee deep in what has now been titled “Iran Contra”. Meaning I was dealing with low level street criminals and gangsters on one hand, while also dealing with men in levels of high power within our own government who were smuggling cocaine into this country to raise cash to buy guns for the Contra’s. If you’ve seen the film “Cocaine Cowboys” then you have an idea what I was in the middle of. I was also being used as a “go between” to get the drug from the pier to the Hollywood parties and into the Beverly Hilton Hotel.

This put me on the front row of witnessing women who were being pimped, sold, trafficked, etc. who also wanted out of their situation. For this reason, I took an old warehouse I had once used as an illegal brothel and “adult theater” and converted it into what was the first “safe house” for adults. In 1984, an angry pimp retaliated against us because of a woman we’d rescued by calling the police on me. I was arrested for being a “pimp” but because I wasn’t doing this the charges were dropped. This didn’t stop the authorities from taking all of my property, threatening to disbar my attorney, etc. I also suddenly had a lot of people scared I would “talk” to the police – and many attempts were made on my life then.

However, in 1985 I met Marilyn Chambers. After Linda Lovelace had escaped her husband slash pimp, Chuck Traynor, he had started “managing” Marilyn. In reality, Marilyn had been promoted heavily in the adult industry not just for her porn performances, but also to deny Linda’s allegations of sex trafficking existing within the porn industry. Marilyn had been put on drugs by Chuck, and because of her “notoriety” had no idea how to leave the adult industry. Her face was clearly recognizable which led to serious discussions about how someone like her could leave the industry entirely, especially now she wanted to stay clean. We both knew she couldn’t possibly stay clean while making adult films so I watched her progression as she tried not only to stay off drugs – but to further not do adult films.

I was with her as she struggled against making these films. Rent had to be paid and who was going to hire Marilyn for work other than adult films? She swore “never to do another adult film” but the industry wasn’t done with her. Offers kept coming in with higher dollar amounts. These pimps know well the “frog in hot water method” and assured they could put her in films where she’d be fully clothed. This way she could pay her bills, make an adult film, but not take her clothes off. You can see how she made a few films this way while “introducing” other women to do the sex scenes in the film.

So here she is still in the adult industry while not having sex for money, nor even taking her clothes off. This was NOT “leading a spiritual life” as the 12 steps speak about are necessary for someone to live in order to stay off drugs if you’re an addict for any length of time. Which is why sure enough – she started doing films after a while topless, then nude but no sex. Then soon she was right back doing adult films and getting high. In fact, when she died she had drugs in her system showing she was never able to stay clean for long because of her inability to leave the sex industry as a whole behind.

Watching this, I realized I had to do something still even if I never did put together another “safe house”. After doing a lot of research, I launched the first hotline in this country for someone in the sex industry (prostitution, porn, stripping, etc.) to call for help to exit for ANY reason. This included those who were being “forced”. Please remember we didn’t have the term “sex trafficking” even coined back then so we made no “distinctions” as to WHY they wanted help. We called ourselves “Prostitutes Anonymous” so those convicted on prostitution charges could have the judge order them to our program as an “alternative to incarceration”. This was allowed under laws already in place for Alcoholics Anonymous. This meant we also formed the first alternative sentencing program also. Our hotline was promoted worldwide – and soon calls were coming in not just from the USA, not just from those involved in illegal prostitution, but from people all over the world engaged in various forms of the sex industry.

As of 2015, our hotline has now answered 500,000 more calls. This means five times more calls than Polaris has answered. We have chapters across the USA, as well as five other countries at the moment. Our chapter in Russia for example is now up to six meetings a week. The subscribers to our blog numbers at the moment at 90,000. The contacts in our member database are showing up to be about 190,000 in number. Our Facebook pages average at least 300 hits a day when you total all of them. We have members who have been with us continuously since 1987. A large number of “regulars” have been with us since 1991 – the year we published the first ever book written by ex-sex workers and survivors of sex trafficking, for us about exiting and recovering from this industry. An “industry” it is being that it encompasses both legal and illegal types of activities which don’t always involve sex for money.

Meaning our program is the OLDEST, and the LARGEST, program of those having exited the industry, or simply having the “desire”. Like Alcoholics Anonymous, we have members who haven’t fully left the industry yet. As long as they have the “desire to exit” they’re welcome. Also like AA, we have members who “relapse” back into the industry. Meaning at any given moment in time, we have members who have been out of the industry for decades sitting next to those still active in the industry. Since I answer our hotline personally daily – I’m constantly speaking to people still in some part of the sex industry.

I was a member of COYOTE before I left the industry fully. This group, Call Off Your Old Tired Ethics, was founded by Margo St. James, another sex worker who was advocating for ALL women to be treated the same whether they were working as secretaries, living as housewives, or active in the sex industry. I remained good friends with Margo when I launched this program and we in fact worked together during the 1980’s a lot. Her group was out doing HIV/AIDS outreach and thus when she’d hear of someone wanting help or support to exit – we’d get a phone call immediately. Her and I were good personal friends in my opinion before her retirement, and handing everyone off to St. James Infirmary.

When Norma Hotaling left the industry in 1989, our program was one of the first people she called. I couldn’t reveal that while she was alive because we protect our members’ “anonymity”. Our policy after my arrest in 1984 was to get our members into their own housing immediately. Not to set up any type of stationary housing. The reasoning with us was simple – those escaping pimps and/or traffickers needed to be moved around for safety so a stationary house was pointless as well as dangerous.

This is why I was dubbed the “High Tech Madam” when I was arrested – because of all of the security equipment I had installed in the place for protection. For others, living off people had been our glass of wine to the alcoholic. Therefore, we needed to start providing our own housing using a “legit” income in order to have any “time” in our program. So we didn’t have any type of housing set up for members. Norma wanted to set up a residential program and I provided her with materials and support to help her set up meetings of our program in hers. I’d already been helping other residential programs for women who had been involved in prostitution to work on those issues by then with groups such as the Mary Magdalene Project, Genesis House, Tarzana Treatment Center, the Salvation Army, and others.

When Margo St. James retired, the group Sex Workers Outreach Project soon took it’s place founded by Robin Few. They were doing a lot of outreach for harm reduction purposes, as well as lobbying to have sex workers get safer working conditions. Phone calls started coming in from their chapters saying “we’ve got a woman here wanting to leave her pimp” or “we’ve got a trafficking ring operating we need help to get women out of”. So we were getting a lot of calls from SWOP to come help when needed.

Calls weren’t just coming from them providing referrals. I personally knew Dave who founded “The Erotic Review”. This site was created by a “john” who would personally “audition” advertisers. While the women would complain about having to sleep with the guy to get a listing – that was it’s “brand”. He was providing “personal reviews” on providers. Dave told me he was doing this so he could also ferret out any signs of someone being pimped and/or trafficked. When he would uncover a situation where a woman was being forced to be in this line of work – we’d get a phone call from him about it.

Because I was in the industry myself for years, people within the industry trusted me with a call when they saw someone needing help or something “irregular”. It was, and is, common for example to have strip club owners call me regularly when they would see a woman being pimped against her will. Referrals don’t just come from within the sex industry either. People in the industry routinely use cabs. I work hard to establish a relationship with cab drivers, and routinely run ads in cab driver “trade” magazines in major cities. So it’s not uncommon for me to have a cab driver showing up at my door with a woman who had gotten in their cab asking to get away from their pimp.

When the AIM Clinic was first opened to test adult performers for HIV/AIDS – they had a stack of our cards there for their counselors. When someone would be diagnosed as “positive” – that puts them “out of business” on the spot. It’s not an easy adjustment and performers would be routinely referred to our program for help. In fact, many labs, as well as doctors who tend to specialize in sex workers, have a stack of our cards they hand out to someone when they see they’re going to need exit help.

Making us again not only the oldest, and largest, group providing exit help for sex workers, but also meaning that we’d had a long standing relationship working with other groups and professionals within the industry itself who have trusted us enough to provide referrals. Over the years, we’ve had an independent professor conduct a 10 year study published in “Leaving Prostitution” by professor Sharon Oselin. This study was done on a group I personally wasn’t even involved with so it was completely objective. On top of this, we’ve had multiple, independent, reputable, investigative reporters come in and check us out thoroughly from an objective stance. All of who wrote wonderful things about us.

So you can imagine after years of having these kinds of relationships, I would therefore find it truly “strange” to have the “tides turn” on us as they have lately. Up until 2007, I had a friendship with Melissa Farley, PhD. In fact, when she told me she needed my help to conduct a study for a report to the State Dept. on sex trafficking in Nevada – I opened up the books and gave her all of the help I could. This report was published “Trafficking in Nevada – Making the Connections”. Meaning when someone wanted to get information from a “reputable” program in the past – they came to us.

The reason why I emphasize this is an INDUSTRY isn’t to “legitimize” it. But because if you don’t think of it like THEY do – which IS an INDUSTRY - then you can’t combat them is why we do. Which is why it’s important to know that when any large industry is afraid of their workers “unionizing” they hire these “consultants” and “influencers”. These firms who specialize in “union busting” usually start with the hiring of an “influencer”. The standard practice is to hire an attractive person who then gets hired to work in the company not wanting the workers to go union like they’re a “regular” employee. They then strike up friendships, even relationships, with other workers where they’re also there to steer private conversations away from the idea of unionizing. Anyone who is even “leaning” towards unionizing is nipped in the bud before they can gather up any support in the company.

Corporate “espionage” is also very common. It’s very common for companies like Pepsi to have someone working to feed them information at Coca-Cola. Many large companies these days are now employing “influencers”. Ads are run on Craigslist to “rent out” private people’s Facebook pages. Then these fake people are put into groups to “stack” them. Anyone then coming in with an opinion they don’t want to be popularized or spread is struck down by what appears to be a “majority” of the group. In fact, I’ve seen whole groups where every person in it is actually one person controlling many identities. Thus instead of a “disagreement” between two people – it appears to be one against the majority. This is to make it appear someone’s viewed are “unpopular” or “not in the majority”.

Hollywood has been using the idea of an “attack” or even “threats” for publicity for ages. Take a look at Emma Watson. She was speaking at the UN when a threat was launched with a count down clock ticking even. The press went crazy about this threat. Only investigation into it proved it was her own marketing company making the threat. Why would she essentially threaten herself? Well ask yourself if you would have even heard of her speech if not for the threat?

Take a real good look at the advertising surrounding the film “50 Shades of Gray”. If you carefully review the parties involved in organizing the opposition to the film, as well as the press, you see the very same people involved in not only this, but also in just about every single story online about the sex industry and trafficking. The same names are appearing over and over again in fact.

Now maybe these people are speaking for “us”? If that’s the case, then where’s our name? I hate to be obvious but look back in the 1980’s and 90’s and you can see we’re the ones quoted in just about every article on the subject. Not ME – but different members of our group presenting THEIR opinions. Now you can look at ANY article on the subject and it’s the same names over and over again. At the same time, anyone who has a different opinion than them are being not only shunned and silenced, but outright threatened, stalked, cyber-bulled, smeared, marginalized, and some people are reporting even actually harmed. I have been a long standing member of online SWOP groups as one example of what I mean. I’ve also been a contributor to the blog “Tits N Sass” since they launched in 2007. However, when what appears to be an organized campaign started up about 2013 to take over being to voice of the sex industry by a group of women – I found myself shut out of all of these groups for absolutely no reason other than these same women pushing the issue. In fact, one SWOP blog moderator told me straight up she was dropping me because she had received physical threats from these women to do so.

Which I’ve seen being played out since Bob Herbert reported he was threatened with a “baseball bat to the head” for simply publishing an interview with me in the NY Post. The reporter who reported he was threatened – was fired the week after the story ran. I have now collected a long list of reporters, blog writers, group moderators, and publishers who have told me they can’t publish anything with my name on it “or else” they’ve been threatened in some fashion by this same group of women. Reporters who have gone against the grain and published something with my name anyway – have in fact been immediately fired for their trouble.

Starting in 2013, our group also started becoming the subject of direct attacks. The goal has been to not only break us up, scare off our members, shut down our meetings, but to further make it appear we don’t even exist. Anyone who used to list us on their Facebook they were a member of SWA, was reporting they were being threatened. If they refused to take down noting they belonged to SWA on their profiles, their pages were being subjected to false complaints and shut down for “violation of terms of service”. Comments mentioning us were reported and deleted. I can’t even place an ad for us on Backpage or Craigslist without it being flagged literally within 60 seconds no matter what time of day it’s posted. We had to stop “friending” members on Facebook because they were reporting receiving threats, being stalked, bullied, and generally attacked until they dropped mention of us.

I can’t even get booked anymore for a tiny little radio interview without the producer telling me she’s received three phone calls that morning from people “warning” her not to have me on the show for one reason or another. The thing is – how are people even knowing I was booked to do the show? The same for “volunteers”. We started having meetings with potential volunteers, only to have them report before they made it home from the meetings they got a call or email “warning” them away from us.

One treasurer at a church in Las Vegas told me she was pulled into her pastor’s office where she was told they had been told “not to speak to Jody nor to even friend her on Facebook”. When she asked why – she was told they had been threatened with an IRS audit if they were to include me in any manner with their trafficking efforts. The whole thing frankly reminded me of when the pimps who had trafficked me were going around to anyone who would hire me as a waitress and threaten to burn down their restaurant if I wasn’t fired in an effort to get me financially desperate enough to come back to them. In fact, I can’t name one single person who hadn’t at one point listed a friendship, alliance, membership, or support in some fashion for myself, or SWA as a group, who hasn’t reported to me they were threatened, attacked, stalked, etc., non-stop until they dropped all mention of us.

When I started reading how other groups in this field were also finding the same people were organizing protests against their anti-trafficking projects – that’s when I realized I wasn’t wrong and this wasn’t at all personal. I’ve done extensive investigative work because of this. I believe there is an organized agenda by traffickers in this country at work here. I have uncovered a systematic pattern of threatening female politicians, female prosecutors, female attorney general’s, female judges, female police officers, female FBI agents, etc. On top of targeting females in positions of authority, there’s also reporters and other media people who have been threatened. This includes even actresses. For example, for 30 years Frances Nuyen, the actress from Joy Luck Club, has done our public service announcements, and had promised to help us promote some local appearances, as well as narrate a documentary about us a few years ago. This actress is in her 70’s now and lives alone. She was threatened into now being afraid to even speak to us – let alone help us with the film or public appearances.

I then turn to find entire groups were set up online to lobby Will Smith against appearing in the film “Concussion” using the same tactics as being used against us. Now what does the NFL have in common with Amazon, Microsoft, Google, Sheldon Adelson, Vivid Entertainment, and Dennis Hof?

The agenda appears to be clear these people want prostitution legalized in the USA. Further, they want to ensure the workers don’t “unionize”. Anyone who is working as an “independent” sex worker, such as those who were working in Rhode Island when prostitution was decriminalized, were the first attacked. These so called “advocates” are reporting the independent sex workers are afraid this “will force them onto the streets”. However, the ones I’m speaking to are reporting this is harassment to force them to work for the traffickers.

When I saw a supposed sex worker and member of SWOP in Seattle tell a cop and a reporter that “these women aren’t being trafficked” at the same time I know women on that site who are reporting to me they ARE being trafficked, while also finding my voice being shut out of the conversation – well then it’s clear to me what’s going on here. Lenin used to say “To control opposition you become it”. This is when I started digging deeper to uncover that not all of these women are even real sex workers! I’ve also uncovered documented evidence anyone not agreeing with their opinions are also being silenced and threatened. In other words, they’re not “representing sex workers voices”.

Not anymore than what was happening with James Deen was. He had been the president of APAC for a while. During that time, they organized a panel on “exiting the industry”. We were blocked from speaking at this event. It’s now come out in the press he has raped more than one woman, even one while the film crew not only kept filming, but further applauded when he was done and she had blood everywhere. I believe this attack was deliberately staged and filmed in order to further stage the complaint against him which led to the fines against the production company. I believe this whole thing in fact was staged to try and deliberately drive the industry into Nevada where performers have even less protections there than in California. I later learned the producer is also being threatened into going along with this agenda in fear for his life.

In other words, anyone in competition with Vivid is being attacked. This “war” is not at all unlike what Al Capone was doing when he was trying to take over control of the bootlegging industry by shutting down anyone not working with us using the media, law enforcement, politicians, etc. Even Hugh Hefner and Larry Flynt are retreating in fear of these people. They are also clearly trying to shut down any avenue OUT of the industry. As Dennis Hof once said to me “he’s invested too much money in recruiting these women to just let them leave that easy”. There’s talk even Brooke Phillips might have been deliberately murdered because she’d left the ranch, and was setting up a shop in Oklahoma.

I’ve been taught since day one when dealing with people like this – you need to TALK. Talk about what’s happening to anyone and everyone who will listen. ALL abusers and predators isolate their victims. It’s well known pimps will get the women fighting with each other so as not to turn on them. Nazi’s also have been using someone’s “own kind” to lead them “into the showers” and “on the trains” which is clearly what’s going on with these women who are calling themselves “advocates”.

Which is why I’ve also uncovered that most of the division among our groups has also been orchestrated by them. For years, I’ve been getting calls that “so and so said this about you” or “so and so attacked you and told me to do this to harm you” and “so and so is on drugs” and other gossip. I’ve gone back over the people giving me this information – and now see it was also staged by “catfish” fake people.

I’ve also found myself impersonated in many ways. I’ve caught people telling others online I’m “running an escort service” for example. I’m not. However, I’ve then gone onto Google and in fact FOUND someone who had a website up appearing to be an escort service calling themselves “Sex Workers Anonymous”. I complained and got the site shut down, but the seeds of doubt were planted. The same with porn – I’ve found porn sites calling themselves by our name which weren’t mine. There’s interviews online I never gave, websites up I don’t own, and I have found my name all over things online which I’ve had nothing to do with. One woman insists I was at a conference in Chicago and “cussed her out in front of a group of people”. Since then people have talked about how I “attack people”. Only I was never in Chicago. Now in the cases where I’ve been finding myself impersonated – I’ve been able to track them back to Anne Bissell aka Juliette Chandler in each case. I showed this woman a photo of Anne and myself and asked her who was the woman who “cussed her out”. She pointed to Anne.

No. These women are not what they’re representing themselves to be. Like any cheater, predator or abuser – they’re also trying to get us to fight with each other so we don’t turn our focus on to them and compare notes. They’re an organized mob of stalkers and “influencers” hired by traffickers who are trying to control the sex industry using the same tactics used by the NFL, tobacco and alcohol industries over the years.

I also feel they’re trying to provoke us into suing them as individuals. Here’s why – I watched these same people try and provoke, or actually file, lawsuits against other survivors who try and help others exist such as Monica Foster, Desi Foxx, and Shelley Lubben. They then used these lawsuits to try and drag these women into the courthouse where they could be physically stalked, discovery used to gain access to personal information, and to then publish “public records” online as a form of harassment. I believe it was this type of behavior that caused Shelley Lubben’s husband to get fired, and to force them to relocate. However, that still didn’t stop Michael Whiteacre from publishing a map to their new home online. Now from publishing photos he’d paid the gardener to steal off a computer sitting on a desk in Shelley’s private bedroom. I don’t think the photos were as disturbing as the knowledge someone had been in her home, in her bedroom, on her computer, and these photos wound up online.

Shelley announced she was abandoning Pink Cross shortly after these photos were published. Enough is enough. We can continue to act like victims and stick to ourselves and “go it alone”, or we can start banding together to do something to put a stop to this and expose them for what this really is. Those women who need MORE help to exit the industry need us to keep going. So for this reason I’m reaching out to you to ask that we consider ways to connect, compare notes, and see what can be done to stop this “pimp lobby” from what they’re trying to accomplish using illegal, deceitful, unethical, and abusive tactics against us.

If we can’t stand up to them and win – then how are we ever going to teach our members/clients how to do the same?

The case started out as a "free speech" matter from what I'm reading. Then somehow morphed into saying that "sex trafficking doesn't exist".

You read these and tell me what you think.

I've been trying to figure out WHY these fakes have been allowed into the media while the TRUE stories are being suppressed for years now. One of the members of our board told me that what's happening here he's "seen before".

He told me he saw the same thing happening with respect to child sexual abuse down to a "t". Slamming the media with story after story of "false memories" and "debunking satanic abuse" to the point where now if you even so much as mention "satanic abuse" people will roll their eyes at you and say "we've already debunked all of that".

Well no they haven't. Just because there's been a few false cases doesn't not mean there aren't some which are real.

I myself have been wondering why the press has been INSISTING upon bringing on people who are being disproved as fakes AND covering they're fakes - while I can't so much as get a word in edgewise about the REAL stories.

Translate

Follow by Email

Contact Form

About Me

I've been helping men and women leave the sex industry since 1987. Some were forced - some were not. Some thought they weren't and with time realized they were. Some thought they were and with time realized they weren't. Which is why I just focus on this - if you want help to leave any part of the sex industry for any reason - just get in touch. I run Sex Workers Anonymous, Trafficking & Prostitution Services, as well as the American Trafficking Institute. I produce www.blogtalkradio.com/stopsextrafficktalk, and the magazine "Sanity Today". I also help investigators and the authorities with sex trafficking cases, and families help their loved ones leave the streets. Currently I'm organizing www.boycottsnoop.com to demand an acknowledgment of the damage that was done to women during his 2003 tour and www.pimpalert.com to help caught pimps who are dangerous and on the streets. Our book on the history of this field "Anatomy of a Movement" is almost done.